Aqueous
by darkbeetlebot
Summary: A quaint tale of a strange incident that only Marisa can solve this time around. No, not because she has lasers. Contains mature themes not suitable for the weak-minded; read at your own discretion and risk as it WILL become worse the further in it goes. Again, it contains guro and a lot of death.


It has been at least 5 years since the Scarlet Mist incident that revealed the Scarlet Devil Mansion and what began Marisa's regular ransacking of the library there. The ransacking is an irregular activity; she'll decide to come over whenever she runs out of books to read that she had previously stolen, presumably. She could also come out of boredom to either annoy the residents or pillage some more items. This usually ends in a battle of Danmaku with Marisa more than often being the victor due to her ridiculously overpowered Master Spark that she happens to also overuse. Patchouli is the proprietor of said library and has closed it off from public access, for good reason. Marisa disregards this and flies in anyways. If Patchouli were not both anemic _and _asthmatic, she would easily be able to overcome Marisa. This being the case, however, she is nearly powerless to stop it without the help of her familiars and the other residents. They don't help much, either.

On this particular but unspecified day, it seems as though Patchouli is rather tired. She seems to be in bad shape and fittingly agitated. It could be for any number of reasons, but that's not really important. After all, it could just allow us to repeatedly backtrack to different sources to point the blame of this incident at. Now what would that solve? Nothing, that's what; playing prosecutor doesn't help anybody! Alas, nothing can really stop this from happening. Fate has decided it, fate that not even Remilia can manipulate.

It's a rather cloudy day, about 17:00, when Marisa decided to take her trip to the mansion that day. The sky was only a bit bleak and signaled a storm coming within the next hour or two with a wall of black and grey clouds coming from the distance to the side of where she looks at them from. She's flying there on her trademark broom, shooting down any stray bogies that may try to attack her. It's all well and good until she reaches the mansion. The air seems to be incredibly tense, even the gate guard Meiling is more alert. Despite being much stronger and more focused than usual, she is dealt with by a swift Master Spark to the face. Inside, the fairies are practically going crazy! It's like the Scarlet Mist incident again, but without the actual incident. She goes through them as usual, still without much trouble. She travels further and further into the mansion that seems to have sprung to life either from the tense atmosphere or the incoming storm or maybe something else, until she reaches the library. The dark and usually well guarded library seems rather tranquil as opposed to usual with little to no things attacking her.

With this unsettling and unusual peace of existence in the usually powerful space, Marisa relaxes herself and nearly lets go, but remembers why she came. She does as wanted and lands, being careful to not be detected by anything. She snoops around with an empty sack, scooping up anything she deems worthy to "borrow" with less than careful finesse. It takes sneaking for about 5 or so minutes before she catches a glimpse of someone holding up a candle and travelling in the corridors of the maze-like library. She takes a hasty diving jump and stays silent, still trying to stay hidden. "Koakuma?" the familiar voice weakly shouts; it echoes through the large and dank place with no reply. She calls again, "Koakuma?" with a slur on the last syllable. "Is that you, Koakuma?" she slurs on the last syllables of most of the words. Slowly, the dark girl limps past Marisa with an incredibly dazed look that is barely visible. Marisa sighs in relief of not being caught and begins to crawl out...but one of the books in a bookcase falls out and alerts the girl! Marisa freezes instinctively as she turns around and catches her. "Who..." she begins to inquisitively aks "Marisa?"

Marisa chuckles and stands up, rubbing the back of her head and replying, "Oh...h-hey, Patche!" A small silence ensues, so Marisa breaks it with the bland question, "So...how are you?" she adds effect at the end with "Ze?"

Patchouli groans painfully and sneers at her with absolute disgust, "Just get out." It really hits Marisa to see her in such a terrible mood, but even more to hear that. It's not uncharacteristic, but simply cold and something that nobody likes to hear.

"Hey," Marisa calls to her, running forward and grabbing her shoulder before she can turn back around "aren't you going to put up a fight?" She's not honestly smiling for once and has her eyebrows raised up to look worried.

"Just get out; I don't feel like dealing with you." Patchouli insists, coldly again. She really looks like a walking corpse, completely pale and with tired eyes. She tries to push Marisa away with a small struggle and mostly succeeds before noticing the sack. "**What is that**?" she boldly and angrily asks.

Marisa begins to metaphorically sweat a bit and tense up, "Nothing, nothing!" She attempts to hide the sack and its contents from Patchouli as to not agitate her further than it appears she is.

Patchouli grows angry, instead, at her incompliance, "No, show me." She tries to circle around Marisa and peek into it, "Are you stealing my books again, you little **rat**?"

Marisa is a little put off by her sudden name-calling but tries to keep a cheery demeanor while subconsciously admitting to that accusation and reassuring her, "Don't worry, I'll give them back when I'm done!"

Patchouli instantly retorts right at her face, yelling, "**What**, like the rest of my books that you '**borrowed**?' The ones that are **still** missing!?" She growls intensely with her teeth gritted after scolding her lightly. "No, you put those down **right now**."

Marisa is put off again by her increasingly hostile attitude but presses on. This time, however, she tries to provoke Patchouli in the hopes of rousing a Danmaku battle, "Oh? How are you going to make me?" She puts on this smug look that attempts to obviously portray her meaning, but it falls short with looking arrogant and assholish instead. This makes Patchouli snap. She takes the candle she's holding and _smashes it strait into Marisa's cheek, aiming at her eye_. The literally incendiary attack makes Marisa recoil with a shriek from the stinging heat that leaves a small burn. With that recoil she drops the sack, but also steps back and trips over it to land on her back and make a pained yelp. "Wh-What?" she asks honestly in sheer confusion as to what just happened.

Patchouli slowly walks next to and above her and replies to her earlier provocation, "**This**." With that, she takes up the book she had been handling in the darkness, crouches down, and beats Marisa's face in with the flat of the book. Obviously, Marisa cannot see in this incredibly dark environment and is completely helpless to what's being done to her. As she gets unexpectedly beat by Patchouli's book, she starts to flail wildly and tries to protect her face from the sudden bludgeoning. In trying to protect herself, Marisa is able to feel her own face and realizes that the initial strike had given her a minor nosebleed. Her unseeable expression is that of more confusion and a little horror. She isn't trying to fight back, just trying to keep from requiring a new nose. This may be moot, however, as the initial hit was surprisingly hard and might have already done enough damage. The beating of an uncounted amount of merciless strikes goes on for about a minute before Patchouli finally grows tired and throws one last weak strike before dropping it and standing back up and ordering, "Put them back." During the beating, Marisa was yelping again and again, pleading for her to stop.

Marisa coughs after her order and still attempts to question her, "What the hell are you doing!?" in an airy and shocked tone.

"You know what?" Patchouli begins to rant, still catching her breath and obviously still angry despite having just beat her into a nosebleed. She takes in a deep breath and then continues, "You are more than just a bitch. You are a lonely, dirty, low-down thief with no concern for anybody but yourself." She takes a small break, but resumes in a higher pitch, "That carefree, happy-go-lucky attitude of yours begs the question of **how the FUCK** you manage to pull off such an act as to trick people into not **killing you** and instead just waiting politely for you to die. It just makes me want to end you that much more!" After that mouthful, she takes in yet another breath, "I am so sick and tired of dealing with you, so sick and tired of you just acting like it's nothing and saying, 'You'll have them back when I die!' Well, guess what? You be **better off dead!**" Patchouli starts to pant from her small speech, and Marisa stands up, holding her nose while frowning with her eyebrows raised in a worryful way. Her eyes are wide open, staring at Patchouli and tearing up a little. Moments later, she reaches out only for Patchouli to lash out again, "**NO!** You black and white **whore**! Condescending, lying, I've had enough of you and your rat ass almost enough to kill you right here and now! How the hell does anybody love you!? How do they even remotely **like** you? I bet they don't. I bet they don't even care about you, I bet that you wouldn't be missed one **bit **if you were to disappear. Go ahead, do it! I don't care, nobody else does, just disappear. **Just drop dead!**"

After that rant, Patchouli doubles over breathlessly and Marisa is left standing, frozen, staring off into nothing without knowing what to do, how to respond to that. She just stands there, stuttering while her nose bleeds slowly. It only takes about ten seconds before she too drops to her knees while starting to well up and ask, "W-What?" Rhetorically. She's dumbfounded that she could be so cold and that she would just lash out like that. "No...they don't hate me." She quietly murmurs, trying to argue against her.

Patchouli immediately retorts with another attack, "I bet they do! I bet they secretly hate your guts!"

Marisa repeats that small word in her quiet voice, "No-" but is cut off by Patchouli again.

"No, I know they do! We all get together and mock you and tell stories about how you fail so much and can't get any customers at your shop because you're so much of a bitch! We laugh about your hoarding problem and hope that you'll suffocate under your own pile of crap! You'll die alone and there's nothing you can do about it!" She's spitting almost and sounds even more aggressive than the previous rant, but now she's simply trying to insult and break her into behaving.

Marisa shakes her head and flings small tears about several times, rubbing her eyes and insisting, "No, no, no, no, no..." while Patchouli continues to pelt her with insults and convincing lies that grow to be more and more aggressive and hurtful. Unbeknownst to them, Sakuya has been standing in the shadowy background, listening still to Patchouli trying to break the girl.

Eventually, Patchouli gets on her for interpersonal afflictions, now standing up and making her way to Marisa with her weaponized book raised up again. She begins to beat Marisa on the head harshly and with a surprising amount of strength. It doesn't help that the thing is thick and heavy enough to leave a mark. She scolds while striking her, "Do you have any idea what you have put me through? You've stolen at least ten percent of my entire library by now! There are so many empty slots, so many times that I have been left with nothing but loneliness, so much information that is lost to your dirty hands, never to be seen again! You don't even take care of them, do you?"

Instinctively, Marisa reaches up and covers her head up to prevent a concussion, now crying ever so slightly while Patchouli beats her as mercilessly and angrily as she can muster. Marisa cries out hesitantly, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, stop it already!" yet she still takes that abuse without putting up much more of a fight. Maybe she is genuinely sorry or doesn't want to fight for real. Patchouli soon grows tired of beating her with a single book, then points at a nearby bookcase. Marisa looks up and shuts up for a second as she looks up at the bookcase and then realizes what's about to happen. She attempts to turn tail and run, but Patchouli commands the entire shelf's book collection to fly right off and swarm Marisa, piling on top of her faster than she can run off, pounds and pounds of force striking her all at once from the back. Immediately, she can be heard whining from inside the newly made pile for someone to help her. She doesn't need any, however, and gets out soon enough. After escaping, she begins to run off and snaps her fingers to call her broomstick. Patchouli has none of that silliness and grabs the broom before it can reach Marisa. She would have broken it right there if Marisa did not then take out her Mini Hakkero and finally threatens to fight back with an angry open frown. Since Patchouli is in no shape to fight, she then chucks the broom at Marisa like a spear. This does nothing, Marisa grabs it and puts her weapon away, then mounting her broom and taking back off.

Patchouli turns halfway and mutters to Marisa despite her not hearing, "Curse you to death, you yob." Meanwhile, Marisa simply flies off and exists the mansion with haste.

From the corner, Sakuya emerges and asks Patchouli, "That was a little harsh, don't you think?"

"She had it coming..." Patchouli nearly growls at her, pushing her out of the way and persisting on her walk. Sakuya follows her, pressing her on the issue more thoroughly, which lasts for at least another hour.

Meanwhile, it begins to rain heavily outside with thunder crackling in the clouds far above, resounding through the entirety of Gensokyo while Marisa flies on back to her house, blissfully ignorant of the danger of flying in a storm. While she flies through the rain, she thinks to herself worriedly, "_What did I do to make her so mad? I never insulted her...or tried to hurt her. Was she mad about the books? I don't borrow very much, there's too much there to get mad at._" She starts to get a bit angry now and clenches her teeth to show herself such, "_She hit me! She really hit me, didn't she? That fucking hurt; how dare she! When I tell Reimu about this, I swear, she-_" But her thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a loud snap in the clouds and a huge lightning bolt streaking down and just barely missing her, but also shooting her into a more aware state. She begins to lower her altitude in hopes to not get struck, but her mind still wanders, "_Did I leave anything behind? That sack...nothing else? Why do I feel like I'm missing something?_" She sighs and simply endures the feeling while she makes it back to her home. Upon landing, however, she suddenly realizes when touching her head, "_My...hat!_" She feels utterly stupid for forgetting such an important piece! At the door, she debates on whether or not to go back and get it or to stay back and wait...but emotion gets the better of rationality and she rears herself back up again, taking off into the sky once more to retrieve her lost hat.

Several minutes into her flight, the sky crackles once more, still disgorging utter torrents of rain. It begs the question of why she would even consider going back in this weather, until one realizes that logic is a weakness in Gensokyo - or so they say. The crackle is followed by several more and a bright flash that blinds her, just before a huge bolt flings out of the sky and strikes her! She's, for lack of a proper word, shocked and nearly knocked out, but still hanging on enough to try and land before getting struck again. The strike from the bolt is strong enough to send her hair into a majorly static position in midair as well as make her jump up a considerable amount. Another problem she doesn't realize is that the heat sat her broom and clothes and hair all on fire as well. Her state prevents her from feeling it, though it tears strait into her flesh and burns it completely, leaving chars behind. Despite her usually unsurvivable state, she manages to get a few dozen meters down in a nosedive before finally succumbing to injury and fainting. With that, she falls down nearly at terminal velocity to the cold and wet ground along with her broom that sticks into the ground and burns like a torch for just a second before being put out by the rain. Marisa lies next to it, unconscious, slipping finally into sweet death. As she slips, her unconscious mind thinks, "_They won't be mad any more._"


End file.
